Was my confession valid?

[PermanentMarker]

My confessor surprised me this evening. I asked him if I could read my sins from a list that I had written, and he said No. I awkwardly tried to negotiate with him about reading from the list, but he insisted that it was a bad practice and that I should recall any mortal sins from memory; he reasoned that serious mortal sins would not escape my memory. I think he also suspected that I suffer from scrupulosity and tried to help me in his own way.

I should have left the confessional, but it simply did not occur to me. Rather than make a scene, I set the list aside and attempted to confess my sins. It did not go so well. I got flustered and nervous and fumbled my way through my sins. I simply could not remember most of them in the spur of the moment, and I became eager for it to end.

To make matters worse, he would not allow me to confess the sins I wanted to confess. For example, there is one sin from my past that he would not let me confess. I confessed the sin before, but in disguised language - disguised enough, at least, for me to think that the priest did not understand the species and gravity of the sin. This confessor, though, simply did not want to hear this sin, the one sin I hoped I would get off my conscience this evening! He said I was forgiven for those sins and only wanted to hear confessions that I have not confessed before.

So, in short, I was not able to remember my sins, and I was not able to confess the sins I wanted to and knew I had to confess. Was my confession valid? And what do you think about him not letting me read from what I have written?

I think this is a tough situation. I had contrition, I think. I did not intentionally hold anything back - it was only the pastoral idiosyncrasy of the priest that prevented me from doing what I would have otherwise done.

 

[Vico]

My confessor surprised me this evening. I asked him if I could read my sins from a list that I had written, and he said No. I awkwardly tried to negotiate with him about reading from the list, but he insisted that it was a bad practice and that I should recall any mortal sins from memory; he reasoned that serious mortal sins would not escape my memory. I think he also suspected that I suffer from scrupulosity and tried to help me in his own way.

I should have left the confessional, but it simply did not occur to me. Rather than make a scene, I set the list aside and attempted to confess my sins. It did not go so well. I got flustered and nervous and fumbled my way through my sins. I simply could not remember most of them in the spur of the moment, and I became eager for it to end.

To make matters worse, he would not allow me to confess the sins I wanted to confess. For example, there is one sin from my past that he would not let me confess. I confessed the sin before, but in disguised language - disguised enough, at least, for me to think that the priest did not understand the species and gravity of the sin. This confessor, though, simply did not want to hear this sin, the one sin I hoped I would get off my conscience this evening! He said I was forgiven for those sins and only wanted to hear confessions that I have not confessed before.

So, in short, I was not able to remember my sins, and I was not able to confess the sins I wanted to and knew I had to confess. Was my confession valid? And what do you think about him not letting me read from what I have written?

I think this is a tough situation. I had contrition, I think. I did not intentionally hold anything back - it was only the pastoral idiosyncrasy of the priest that prevented me from doing what I would have otherwise done.

I believe that this is correct, that if you had even imperfect contrition for all serious sins of your life, when you confessed, and he gave you absolution, and you had intention to do your penance and make amends and not to sin again. One must not have perfect memory, only not withhold intentionally.

The priest must understand some general details that could change the nature or the gravity of the sins and the kind of sin. This is so he can help with counseling and the right kind of penance. One could even say minimally, I think some were mortal and not others, but I spoke with anger about five times since my last confession.

 

[mannyefx]

Personally i dont think your confession was in valid. I still write down my sin’s on a piece of paper.

 

[Peter57]

If you loss your paper with the sins this will be a problem to you .
I recommend to follow your Priest instructions.

 

[martininthefiel]

Normally, once you have confessed a sin, bringing it up again is discouraged. The whole point of Confession is to ask for God’s forgiveness, and amend your life, it is not to mercilessly beat yourself up. If you have received Absolution, and have done an earnest Act of Contrition, God has put away those sins. You need not discuss them again, and your confessor is banned by Canon Law from bringing them up. I sometimes end my Confessions with, “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember, I am truly sorry. I pray God to have mercy on me. I firmly intend amendment of life, and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and his Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution.” or something to that effect.

Trust that God’s Will is for your redemption. God formed you in the womb, and knows everything there is to know about you. He loves you perfectly, and is not trying to trick you. Only the devil deceives.

“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desire known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Thy Holy Name, through Christ, our Lord.”

 

[martininthefiel]

BTW–I get nervous in the confessional also. I’ve never had a priest tell me I couldn’t use notes. But maybe he had his reasons.

I have, at times, sensed that my confessor was hinting that I was going-on in too much detail. You might try putting a specific name on what you are confessing to, adding only brief, but sufficient detail to your description. It is not psychotherapy. You need not provide every minute detail, only enough to indicate that you know what you did. I liked the example in an earlier post, acting-out angrily 5 times.

Also, you need not confess every venial sin.

 

[Tietjen]

My confessor surprised me this evening. I asked him if I could read my sins from a list that I had written, and he said No. I awkwardly tried to negotiate with him about reading from the list, but he insisted that it was a bad practice and that I should recall any mortal sins from memory; he reasoned that serious mortal sins would not escape my memory. I think he also suspected that I suffer from scrupulosity and tried to help me in his own way.

I have heard of people writing their sins down and bringing them to Confession with them, so I know that it is not too unusual. However, I can see where the priest may see this as a sign of scrupulosity in that some may tend to write down every little thing (whether it is a sin or not). I think that you would be best to follow your priest’s direction.

I should have left the confessional, but it simply did not occur to me. Rather than make a scene, I set the list aside and attempted to confess my sins. It did not go so well. I got flustered and nervous and fumbled my way through my sins. I simply could not remember most of them in the spur of the moment, and I became eager for it to end.

You may have felt as though it didn’t go well, but feelings are not what determines whether a confession is valid or not. In the end, if the priest absolved you, then it went fine.

To make matters worse, he would not allow me to confess the sins I wanted to confess. For example, there is one sin from my past that he would not let me confess. I confessed the sin before, but in disguised language - disguised enough, at least, for me to think that the priest did not understand the species and gravity of the sin. This confessor, though, simply did not want to hear this sin, the one sin I hoped I would get off my conscience this evening! He said I was forgiven for those sins and only wanted to hear confessions that I have not confessed before.

Respectfully, this statement leads me to believe that you are indeed being too scrupulous. You appear to have trouble accepting the authority that God has given to your priest. If your priest tells you that a past sin which was confessed and absolved does not need to be re-confessed, then it does not need to be re-confessed. To suggest that the sin wasn’t absolved or forgiven at the prior confession is to either doubt God’s ability to forgive sin or to doubt the Church’s authority to absolve you from a confessed sin.

So, in short, I was not able to remember my sins, and I was not able to confess the sins I wanted to and knew I had to confess. Was my confession valid? And what do you think about him not letting me read from what I have written?

Yes, your confession was valid. You do not have to recall every sin that you have committed. God knows your heart and knows that you earnestly want to remember all your sins so that you can confess them. He (God) is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins unless you are intentionally not confessing a sin(s).

I think this is a tough situation. I had contrition, I think. I did not intentionally hold anything back - it was only the pastoral idiosyncrasy of the priest that prevented me from doing what I would have otherwise done.

Try not to think of your priest as having done something eccentric. He was attempting to help you and was doing what God has given him the authority to do.

God bless.

 

[Lonely_guy]

You did your best,you had a list,that shows that you wanted to confess all you had done wrong. God forgives you,not the priest. He act’s “In Christi Persona” but he is not Christ. I don’t know if your confession is valid in the eyes of the Church but reading your question made me sure you really wanted to be absolved and with all my heart and soul I think God have forgive you. Next time,keep your note book hidden from the priest and try to not talk like you would be reading something. And even better,don’t sin so much that you need a paper to remember the sins. But yes,I believe that you are forgiven.

 

[TrueLight]

You did your best,you had a list,that shows that you wanted to confess all you had done wrong. God forgives you,not the priest. He act’s “In Christi Persona” but he is not Christ. I don’t know if your confession is valid in the eyes of the Church but reading your question made me sure you really wanted to be absolved and with all my heart and soul I think God have forgive you. Next time,keep your note book hidden from the priest and try to not talk like you would be reading something. And even better,don’t sin so much that you need a paper to remember the sins. But yes,I believe that you are forgiven.

Is this your regular confessor? If so, he might be trying to help you avoid scrupulosity.

 

[James_Miller]

It was valid. Make a good examination of conscience and forget about lists.

 

[Ubenedictus]

The use of a note is not wrong, it is profitable and i’ve heard some saint use them and even purposely drop them were others can find them ( i’m not advising u to do so). But your priest may have his reasons. You may have an unsettled mind( that’s why d paper profitable) but your confession is very valid. I don’t know about your previous one, trying to hid a sin causes problem with your confession it may make it invalid can 987 talk about the necessity of a good disposition (and what it consist of) to confession.

 

[Deo_Gratias42]

Attempting conceal a mortal sin in Confession invalidates it, which means all those mortal sins from that Confession, plus all the mortal sins of the current confession need to be re-confessed/confessed in kind, number and circumstances when necessary. It is perfectly fine to confess venial sins as well as confessing each one specifically gives you graces to help you overcome them.

There is also absolutely nothing wrong with writing down your sins and bringing the list in with you to confession and reading from the list. I do it all the time, as do a number of other people at my parish. Obviously, don’t write your name on it or any other type of identifying marks, and destroy it as soon as you’re done confessing. I recommend tearing it up into medium sized pieces and flushing it down the toilet. Flushing down smaller pieces usually requires three flushes to get all the pieces down, and environmentalists tend to get upset about wasting water. By writing down your sins and reading from the list you:

• Don’t forget sins
• Don’t ramble on with unrequired details
• Usually have a more brief confession

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Attempting conceal a mortal sin in Confession invalidates it, which means all those mortal sins from that Confession, plus all the mortal sins of the current confession need to be re-confessed/confessed in kind, number and circumstances when necessary. It is perfectly fine to confess venial sins as well as confessing each one specifically gives you graces to help you overcome them.

There is also absolutely nothing wrong with writing down your sins and bringing the list in with you to confession and reading from the list. I do it all the time, as do a number of other people at my parish. Obviously, don’t write your name on it or any other type of identifying marks, and destroy it as soon as you’re done confessing. I recommend tearing it up into medium sized pieces and flushing it down the toilet. Flushing down smaller pieces usually requires three flushes to get all the pieces down, and environmentalists tend to get upset about wasting water. By writing down your sins and reading from the list you:

• Don’t forget sins
• Don’t ramble on with unrequired details
• Usually have a more brief confession

Using disguised language doe not mean that the OP was attempting to conceal his sin, it sonds like he was just embarrassed to state it clearly. Often this happens when a penitent thinks he needs to give more detail than necessary.

OP, find a good examine of conscience to do well before confession. Focus on mortal sins and confess in kind and number. As Deo Gratis says, don’t ramble on with unnecessary details. It is usually in the long story that we lose sight of everything else we need to say. If I go in to confession ready to say, “I have stole $100 from my employer 2x, fornicated 5x, and skipped Mass for the past 2 Sundays.” I am not likey to forget anything. If I start telling the story of why I stole money and how mean my employer is and how no one at work likes me, I am not going to get to my other sins before I am completely confused and the priest is trying to counsel me and then thinks I’m finished.

 

[PermanentMarker]

I tend towards agreeing with most of you that my confession was valid. On the other hand, I was so flustered by the situation that I was eager for it to end. And it did end rather abruptly so that I could have confessed more sins that I otherwise did.

I am going to talk to a priest today and see what he thinks.

 

[damooster]

I tend towards agreeing with most of you that my confession was valid. On the other hand, I was so flustered by the situation that I was eager for it to end. And it did end rather abruptly so that I could have confessed more sins that I otherwise did.

I am going to talk to a priest today and see what he thinks.

Seriously, you need to trust in your Confessor. Everything that he said and did was perfectly fine. Just from your one post, most of us can tell that you have a terrible problem with scrupulosity.

Talking to another priest is not going to make the situation any better. If he agrees with what your Confessor did, you’ll still harbor doubt (because of your scrupulosity). If he doesn’t agree with your Confessor, you’re going to find yourself back at square one.

On top of that, I think your Confessor did you a huge favor today. You tried to confess a sin he previously gave you absolution for. What does that say to the priest? You don’t trust him?

I hate to sound mean towards you, but your original post is very aggravating.

 

[PermanentMarker]

Seriously, you need to trust in your Confessor. Everything that he said and did was perfectly fine. Just from your one post, most of us can tell that you have a terrible problem with scrupulosity.

Talking to another priest is not going to make the situation any better. If he agrees with what your Confessor did, you’ll still harbor doubt (because of your scrupulosity). If he doesn’t agree with your Confessor, you’re going to find yourself back at square one.

On top of that, I think your Confessor did you a huge favor today. You tried to confess a sin he previously gave you absolution for. What does that say to the priest? You don’t trust him?

I hate to sound mean towards you, but your original post is very aggravating.

I do not know why you are aggravated, friend. My confessor made rash judgments with very little information about me, and, if I may say so, you are doing the same thing. My concern about the validity of my confession was not and is not some neurosis - for crying out loud, if I was prevented from confessing sins that I knew I had to confess, that is legitimate cause for concern! Any Catholic, I think, would be scandalized by that! My confessor assumed that I was scrupulous, and he made me conform to his arbitrary way of doing things. He may have had good intentions, but he was wrong. He was wrong on his assumptions about me; he was wrong not to let me read from what I had prepared; and he was wrong from preventing me from confessing mortal sins on my conscience.

I talked to another priest last night, and he was in full agreement with me about this very unusual experience. He offered to hear my confession, and I took it. It was awesome, and I feel great.

 

[couponfit]

My confessor surprised me this evening. I asked him if I could read my sins from a list that I had written, and he said No. I awkwardly tried to negotiate with him about reading from the list, but he insisted that it was a bad practice and that I should recall any mortal sins from memory; he reasoned that serious mortal sins would not escape my memory. I think he also suspected that I suffer from scrupulosity and tried to help me in his own way.

I should have left the confessional, but it simply did not occur to me. Rather than make a scene, I set the list aside and attempted to confess my sins. It did not go so well. I got flustered and nervous and fumbled my way through my sins. I simply could not remember most of them in the spur of the moment, and I became eager for it to end.

To make matters worse, he would not allow me to confess the sins I wanted to confess. For example, there is one sin from my past that he would not let me confess. I confessed the sin before, but in disguised language - disguised enough, at least, for me to think that the priest did not understand the species and gravity of the sin. This confessor, though, simply did not want to hear this sin, the one sin I hoped I would get off my conscience this evening! He said I was forgiven for those sins and only wanted to hear confessions that I have not confessed before.

So, in short, I was not able to remember my sins, and I was not able to confess the sins I wanted to and knew I had to confess. Was my confession valid? And what do you think about him not letting me read from what I have written?

I think this is a tough situation. I had contrition, I think. I did not intentionally hold anything back - it was only the pastoral idiosyncrasy of the priest that prevented me from doing what I would have otherwise done.

It’s about reconciliation! The priests have told me things during confession that have rung a bell of truth to my ears:

1. It’s not enough that you remember or detail the sins, that alone is not the real goal.
2. It’s not enough that you spell out your since with perfection of detail but rather with purity of heart
3. It is not enough that you attend confession but that you complete the entire process with intention, remorse, and repentance.

Imagine if you knew the day you would die, and you simply saved every sin to paper until that date! Then in a single motion confessed and repented with sincerity and good intention. Would that be enough! YES! But that’s really not why we go to confession because confession is best served as part of our faith throughout the year on a routine. Confession is a part of our life in the church because during this time we accept the Holy Spirit into our hearts in an attempt to learn and remember how to live our life better in the coming period after confession. Confession helps us to maintain our communion with the church.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I talked to another priest last night, and he was in full agreement with me about this very unusual experience. He offered to hear my confession, and I took it. It was awesome, and I feel great.

I am glad that you have now made a complete confession. I urge you strongly to pick one confessor and go to him consistently. Even those of us who are not scrupulous can fall into the error of judging and searching for a ‘perfect’ experience in confession (or at Mass). By not comparing priests or searching out ‘better’ confessors, you can focus more on your own examination of conscience and amendment of your life.

 

[Ubenedictus]

Using disguised language doe not mean that the OP was attempting to conceal his sin, it sonds like he was just embarrassed to state it clearly. Often this happens when a penitent thinks he needs to give more detail than necessary.

OP, find a good examine of conscience to do well before confession. Focus on mortal sins and confess in kind and number. As Deo Gratis says, don’t ramble on with unnecessary details. It is usually in the long story that we lose sight of everything else we need to say. If I go in to confession ready to say, “I have stole $100 from my employer 2x, fornicated 5x, and skipped Mass for the past 2 Sundays.” I am not likey to forget anything. If I start telling the story of why I stole money and how mean my employer is and how no one at work likes me, I am not going to get to my other sins before I am completely confused and the priest is trying to counsel me and then thinks I’m finished.

friend using disguised language is also concealing the sin, it is like saying i quech my thirst instead of confessing immoderate use of alcohol, because u are embarrased so the priest think u did nothing or somthing less wrong. U have hiden the sin, invalidated the confession maybe some may add treated what is sacred in an unsacred way. E t c
ubenedictus

 

[Cristiano]

In my ignorant opinion I think that the most serious problem here is that the OP is not willing to receive graces from God despite his own faults. I have the impression that somehow he needs to feel that he merited absolution by going through the process the way he wanted. The confessor is there in Persona Christi and he is the one deciding how things are done. A lot of us including myself love to be in control but that becomes a sin when we thing that we can merit graces because of our own behaviors. I am very serious when I talk about the inner belief of meriting graces through our own actions, otherwise we would not question the validity of a sacrament even if it did not go as we wished or planned for.

Recently I just went through a major experience where the priest told me to do something and I thought that he was wrong in asking me to do that, I was not pious enough, I was not good enough. However, in obedience I accepted the fact that his commend was given with the Authority of the Church and well alligned with the Church teachings. Still I did not feel that I merited such a responsibility; however, as soon as I accepted in obedience I felt free and capable to do what I was requested. This is a reason why I pray to Padre Pio and Don Bosco asking them to show me the true obedience to the Church.